


thicker than blood

by cassie_p



Category: The Following
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Knifeplay, M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-19
Updated: 2016-04-19
Packaged: 2018-06-01 10:55:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6515347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassie_p/pseuds/cassie_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s not the first time you’ve wished for something real, but it’s the first time you’ve wanted it so desperately you can’t breathe without him.  You learn to deal with endless suffocation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	thicker than blood

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this work comes from the common adage, "Blood is thicker than water", which is actually a misinterpreted shortening of the original adage, "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb."
> 
> The depictions of violence are mostly in the form of Paul's murderous thoughts, and the knifeplay scene is not in too much detail. Let me know if I should warn for anything else & feel free to ask me for more detail about the warnings!

You’re lying on your back in the center of the bed, laughing, and Jacob is straddling you, making exaggerated shushing sounds to convince Sarah that you’re doing the exact opposite of what you really are.

You rock your hips upwards, your jeans biting into your flaccid prick, and he bounces above you in response, an odd sort of whine coming out of his throat.  Your laughter turns genuine, and Jacob hits you, softly, in the stomach, but he’s still grinning wide enough to split his face in two, a Cheshire cat getting the cream.  You turn your grunt into an elongated groan, hitting the mattress a few times for good measure.

Jacob leans down over you, presses his lips right up against your ear, whispers, “How long do you think we need to do this?”

He might mean how many minutes do you need to pretend to be fucking for, he might mean how many days in a row do you need to loudly pretend to fuck before Sarah considers you both harmless, impotent, he might mean how many months do you need to hide your shark’s teeth in a banker’s smile, he might mean how many years do you need to fake being in love with each other, he might mean how many minutes are you two really going to remain alive in this façade, in this life.

You wrap your arms around his waist, tight, and flip both of you over, so he lands, winded and wide-eyed, staring up at you like you are the only thing in the world that matters.

“As long as it takes,” you say.  “Forever, if we must,” you say, loud enough Sarah can hear.

 

\---

 

It’s the fifteenth, twentieth, one-hundredth time you’ve laid in this damn bed, applying pressure to the squeakiest box-springs in hope of the sound carrying through the walls to your audience.

It’s not the first time you’ve wished for something real, for Jacob’s moans to be your name instead of Billy’s, for the clothes on your bodies to be somewhere on the floor, for the fingernails you glance against Jacob’s stomach to bite in lasting half-moon marks, for the mirth in Jacob’s eyes to melt into arousal when you stroke your palm down his chest towards his dick.

It’s not the first time you’ve wished for something real, but it’s the first time you’ve wanted it so desperately you can’t breathe without him.

You learn to deal with endless suffocation.

 

\---

 

Jacob thinks you need to spend more time with Sarah, to make sure you stay firmly planted in her trusted inner circle, so he arranges a complicated outing on one of her sparse days off.  It involves a carnival and an outdoor concert and it is the last thing you want to do with your paid leave, but Jacob says _It’s for Joe, it’s all for Joe_ , looking at you with puppy-dog eyes -- half of his argument convinces you.

Sarah seems terrified but elated to be not only in public but in the middle of a crowd of strangers.  The three of you spend the day binging on fairground food and waiting in line for rusted rides that look like they may fall apart if the wind off the Bay is too strong.  Jacob, who is so affectionate in the comfort of Sarah’s home, shies away from your every touch.  Sarah’s face shutters every time she sees him flinch, and her discomfort is doing nothing to lessen the knot tumbling through your stomach, growing larger every time your fingers stray like iron towards Jacob’s magnetism.  

It becomes so uncomfortable that you send Jacob off with a contrived errand to get a moment alone with Sarah, and spin her an improvised story about Will’s closeted lifetime and homophobic family, the way he still glances over his shoulder on every date you go on, afraid his father will materialize behind him.

She softens into heartbroken sympathy and wraps you in a hug tight enough to crack a rib, if she tried.  You almost hope that she does, so you can escape this unpleasant situation caused by Jacob and his ridiculous compunctions.  You pat Sarah’s back awkwardly and tell her not to let Will know you’ve told her any of this.  

She hooks your fingers together in a pinky swear, so genuine that if you slit her throat you’re sure empathy will spew from the wound in rhythmic pulses instead of blood.  But Joe has already cut her, and she bleeds as red as the rest.  You squeeze her shoulder and smile weakly, a gentle, concerned boyfriend who just wants his lover to be happy.

Jacob returns with cotton candy and a stuffed bear that he presents to Sarah with a low bow.  She rolls her eyes but smiles and accepts the garishly pink toy.  You eye the cotton candy and open your mouth with a subtle gesture towards Sarah.  He seems to get it, leaning in close with a sweet smile and placing a piece of fluffy sugar onto your tongue, letting his thumb linger on your bottom lip as he draws his hand away.

You cheat your eyes over to Sarah, who is watching you both with a tiny smile.  Jacob must notice too, because he spends the rest of the day close enough to touch, even if you never do.

 

\---

 

The drunken kiss on the couch is far from the first you and Jacob have shared but it is the one where you start counting.  Yours is zero, Jacob’s unexpectedly enthusiastic response is one.   

For weeks, it remains at one.  Sober-Jacob will hardly look at you, let alone come near you.  You’ve been successfully avoiding Sarah, hoping she never sees any cracks in the story of Billy and Will, so of course Jacob bumps into her on the steps outside the garage one day after work.  He tells her you two are fine, nothing’s wrong, you just happen to both be busy every single time you usually see her.  He doesn’t think Sarah found his excuses believable, he tells you that night, when you’re lying side by side in bed with miles of space between you.

A weary sigh fills your very soul.  You’re used to cleaning up Jacob’s messes but that doesn’t stop the pinprick of irritation at the thought of the effort you’ll need to exert to fix this.  You’re running through options that will inconvenience you the least when you get the best idea, so you sit up and shout, “Are you fucking kidding me?” loud enough that Sarah must have heard, if she is awake.  Jacob’s eyes widen and he jumps up to a seated position, his mouth falling slightly open.  You lean close, whisper, “Argue with me.  Say things that angry people say but don’t really mean anything.  Complain about the dishes, for fuck’s sake, just say something.”

Comprehension dawns and Jacob smiles at you, before he remembers he hasn’t been doing that.  “No, I’m not kidding, Billy” he yells, stomping his feet as he jumps out of bed.  “I don’t think it’s that much to ask!”

“Not too much to ask?  Not too much to ask?” you repeat.  You figure the less details, the easier it will be to explain away to Sarah without a fuss.  You try to keep your voice composed but you’re almost on the verge of laughter, smiling wide at the wall because this is too ridiculous for you to find anything but humor in it.

Jacob is smiling too, pacing noisily around the bed to buy himself time.  He schools his expression into something approaching severity, affects incredulousness and indignation, “It’s just dishes!”

“It is never _just_ dishes, William,” you intone with overemphasized scorn, the chuckles in your chest bubbling to the surface.

“Then what is it about?  What have I even done wrong?” Jacob throws his arms wide in a parody of defensiveness but your amusement evaporates like it never existed, leaving nothing but resentment in its wake.  You pull the covers back and slowly raise yourself to your feet, every movement you make measured and mechanical.

“What have you done _wrong_?” you snarl, and you know that there is too much venom in your voice but Jacob managed to say the one and only dangerous thing.  “How could you even ask me that?”

He looks like he has stopped breathing, like he is once more terrified of being anywhere near you.  And maybe he has, he must know your anger just went from play-act to real.  Your ire is lava and any reasonable person runs away from a volcanic eruption.  He opens his mouth and then closes it again, biting down on his lower lip and glancing away from you.  You feel like your blood is vibrating and you need to get out of this fucking bedroom before you do something regrettable.  “I’m going for a run,” you say, clipped, and stalk over to the closet for sweats and sneakers.  

You keep yourself in perfect control until the moment your feet hit the pavement outside and then you are _bolting_ , throwing all of your energy into the motion of your limbs.  You try to keep your head, to follow your usual jogging route, but you pass turns before you realize you’ve reached them and then don’t turn back.  You don’t stop yourself until your feet give out under you and you land on your hands and knees on the rough sidewalk, breathless and aching.

When your heart rate has slowed enough that you feel like a person, you turn over to sit on the gritty curb in a part of town you don’t recognize, without your cell phone or even your glasses.  You can’t read the street sign on the corner from this angle, but you need to catch your breath before you can even try to get back home, and you know it.  You brush grime out of the pinprick cuts on your palms and your knees and thank your past self for grabbing your cheap sweats, so you don’t feel bad about bleeding on them.

Eventually, you stand up, and you wander until you find something you recognize.  You manage not to get lost again, but by the time you make it back it’s been hours.  You don’t know if you hope that Jacob waited up for you or that he went to bed, because teaching elementary school on no sleep is a hell not even he deserves.  

The kitchen light is on when you walk in even though it was off when you stormed out.  There’s a note on the table and you don’t want to look at what it has to say, but you make yourself stumble over and read it anyways.  It’s crumpled and portions of it are scratched out so you can’t possibly figure out what it once said, so all that remains is, “At Sarah’s.  Just for tonight, to keep up the ruse that we are fighting.” without a name signed at the bottom.  You wonder if he would have put Will or Jacob.  If he was wondering the same thing and that’s why he left it blank.

 

\---

 

You take to sleeping on the couch.  Seeing him first thing every morning and feeling him next to you the entire time you’re trying to fall asleep is just too much.  You would rather dance around him in silence like you’ve done for the past few weeks, unbearable as they have been, than face him directly.  You only look out of the corners of your eyes, and in your minimal glimpses of his face, he looks haunted, guilty, constantly on verge of saying something but never getting up the fucking courage.  Not that you want him to talk to you.  Not that you want to look at his eyes or feels his hands on your skin or hear an emotion in his voice besides regret, you lie to yourself, steadily and repeatedly, like that will eventually make it true.

 

\---

 

Your dickbag boss keeps you an extra forty-seven minutes past the time you’re supposed to clock out without paying you a cent of overtime, so you hit the worst of rush hour traffic without any form of compensation, only to come home to a house with no lights on and no sign of Jacob.  Whose day ends four hours before yours on a normal day.  You were already on edge but now your blood is thrumming inside your skin, your pulse moving fast enough it feels like your bones themselves are vibrating.  You want to throw punches or stab someone through the liver, you want to rip every piece of furniture in the fucking townhouse into shreds with your bare hands and douse the pieces in gasoline and light a match.

The front door slams open and you almost laugh -- you are so ready for a fight and good God do you and Jacob need to fight, just to clear the fucking air.  He stomps his way into the kitchen, where there’s just enough light from the living room windows to illuminate Jacob’s narrowed eyes and bitten lips, the clench in his jaw and stiffness in his shoulders.  You pray that he throws the first punch, for once in his pathetic life.

Jacob pushes his way into your personal space and you don’t budge a single inch (when have you ever?) but he doesn’t do anything.  Just stares at the deranged smile on your mouth and bites his fucking lip.  When he moves, it’s a sudden surge of incoming motion and you’re caught too off-balance to defend yourself.

It takes you several seconds longer than it should to figure out that Jacob did not throw a punch, he raised his hands to your cheeks and pulled you closer.  He did not headbutt you or aim for a bite, he kissed you.

You count, _Two_ , before you bother to think anything else and then you stop thinking altogether.

Later, after all of the frustration has turned into sweat and moans and miles of bare skin, Jacob rests his head on your shoulder and catches his breath.  You can feel the hot air of every exhale ghost over your chest, feel his lungs expand and deflate against your side.  Neither of you has spoken a word besides _please_ , and _more_ , and cut-off groans, _Pa-- Billy_ , _Jac--_ .  You refused to lie this time, to say a false name when it finally seems like you have something for yourself.  When it seems like you finally have _Jacob_ for yourself.  It’s probably a delusion, and tomorrow you two will go back to studiously ignoring each other, but you allow yourself to pretend.

Jacob’s breathing evens out and he shifts his weight.  You wait for your illusion to be shattered but he resettles on your pectoral.

“I told Sarah you proposed,” he says quietly, staring at the farthest wall.  When you say nothing, he continues, “I told her I panicked and didn’t say yes yet and that’s why we were arguing.  I needed to talk through everything and that was the only lie I could come up with that worked.”

His cheek starts to heat against your chest, his face and neck gone pink from a blush.  He’s still not looking at you so you stare at the top of his head in retaliation.  He seems like he’s waiting for you to respond so you stay silent.  You’ve always had more patience than he does, despite appearances.  

He breaks even quicker than you anticipated.  “So Sarah’s advice, because she was trying to help me figure out if I wanted to marry you or not, her advice was that I should imagine your smile and ask myself if I want to see it every day.  And that would give me my answer.”

You keep your breathing even by imagining the thuds of a metronome and keeping yourself in rhythm.  The frantic pace of your heart must be giving you away but hopefully he doesn’t notice.  He’s gnawing on his lip again, a misplaced incisor away from breaking skin.  You hope he does.

“So I told her,” he whispers, finally, voice rough, “Yes, obviously.  Your smile makes me feel… Brave.  Safe.  Of course I want to see it every day.”

Your heart is trying to beat its way out of your chest.  You always knew developing feelings for Jacob would be the stupidest mistake you ever made, far more reckless than serial killing, far more impulsive than upending your life to join a cult of murderers.  The last thing you ever expected was Jacob admitting reciprocation in his own clumsy, closeted way.  This must be a dream, because it is only in dreams that you get exactly what you want.  But you can feel sweat evaporating off your skin, leaving patches of gooseflesh.  The sheet is sticking to your back and making your calves itch.  Jacob’s head on your shoulder is numbing your arm.  It’s all the unpleasant detail that dreams can never provide; if you really were asleep you would feel like you were floating on a cloud and the ground could never touch you again.  

Jacob whispers your name suddenly, snapping your train of thought.  You realize he has been waiting for your reaction, like you haven’t already made your declarations with your every action and inaction, every facial expression and sentence left unfinished.

You clear your throat.  “Does this mean I need to buy you a ring?” you say, your voice as even and disinterested as you can manage.

Jacob laughs and pushes his face further into your chest, flopping his arm around your middle and shifting slightly on top of you.  All the rigidity has left his muscles and he oozes like melted butter to surround you.  You didn’t realize how small he was trying to make himself until he expanded large enough to fill the room.

He looks up at you, finally, his teeth fixed on his curved bottom lip and a blush still painting his cheeks.  “Yeah, man, you’re buying me a really expensive ring.  I demand the best.”  He laughs again, in something like disbelief.

You mean to say something sardonic or scathing but your goddamned tongue has a mind of its own most days and this is certainly no exception.  “Anything you want,” you say, dripping earnestness in a show of affection you never intended.

Jacob rewards your mistake with kiss number three.  Punishes you with another small, intimate smile.

 

\---

 

Jacob presses the needlepoint tip of the knife into the skin of the left side of your chest.  It’s hard for you to breathe, like there is ballast in your lungs weighing them down when they want to fly open for air.

He doesn’t say, “Are you sure?” and you don’t say, “Please,” because you are never uncertain and he isn’t the type to watch someone beg.  Jacob has always been about wish fulfillment, about feeling useful, about being wanted and then delivering as desired.

A drop of blood has beaded to the surface of your skin, pale from the Virginia wintertime.  Jacob drags the knife horizontally, until he decides the first line is long enough.  You gave him full creative license, just placed the blade in his hand and told him that he may not be able to kill, but he can still create art with bodies and weapons if he wants.  You offered yourself up as a practice canvas, feigning selflessness and faith in Joe’s cause, but really you were motivated by the churning desire in your gut to be special, to mean something.  In this way, through you, Jacob is becoming something.  

He puts the point of the knife to the middle of the first line and pulls it vertically, before curling it up and in.  An uppercase “J”, you realize, immortalized in your skin.

He hesitates, wide-eyed, glancing between your eyes and your chest rapidly.

You realize he has a choice, a crossroads.  Does he follow up with the linear slashes of an uppercase “A”, does he carve in the curve of an “O”?  His conscious wars with his hand, it seems, from the way his fingers shake in a way you haven’t seen since ‘08, when you stabbed a girl in the trunk of a car right in front of him.  You wonder if he’ll make the right decision, if he knows which name really belongs in the space above your heart.  If he knows and is willing to admit it.

You feel a little more capable of breathing in the face of his dilemma.  It brings you a strange sense of calm to watch him flounder between his devotion to Joe and what he must know about you, what he has to have figured out by now.  You stare at his face, at the flush of his cheeks and the way his teeth nibble at the meat of his lower lip.  He finally looks back to you, makes eye contact with you, and resolve bleeds into his eyes, slowly, slowly.

He puts the knife back in your skin with sure slashes, defined marks.  Less tentative, more confident.  Almost like he believes in himself, like if you asked him he could plunge the blade right through your chest without missing a beat.

You have changed him, you have, and a profound pride washes through you with an intensity you can never replicate.   _Look at what I have made_ , you think, watching the smile lurking in the corner of Jacob’s mouth as he slices his own name into your chest.

The right decision, indeed.

 

\---

 

Before you held out a knife to Jacob, handle first, you didn’t think that changing him would transform you too, but oh Lord did it.  You’ve always looked at your life and seen him as the only bright point.  Every night you dream about the sharp smile he reserves only for monsters like you, but now it is so much worse, because you can imagine those pretty rich boy teeth covered in blood, imagine his lips split from the latest victim’s flailing limbs and pointed fingernails.  You can imagine that the polished, put-together angel in front of you is just as much of a façade as Jacob wishes it is, that he really is bloodlust and blind fury beneath the caring, considerate mask, and oh God do you want it to be true.

You love the man in front of you more than you love yourself most days, but you love the person he wants to be even more.

 

\---

 

Emma visits one day, out of the blue, no warning.  Says she’s Will’s cousin Gail who’s staying for a few days for college visits in the area.  Tells Sarah, who’s over for drinks and a movie night, that she is thinking of majoring in nursing, maybe? -- all infantilized uncertainty and hesitation, hiding as best she can behind her pixie cut and giggling at the floor.  Sarah eats it up from Emma’s palm, cooing and recounting the hells of nursing school but _it was all worth it because she leaves work every day feeling like she has truly made a_ difference _in the world_.  

It makes you want to vomit.

Jacob keeps smiling like his Christmas came early, and you’re just Easter or Labor Day or maybe, if you stretch your abysmal luck, July 4th or Halloween.  They explain away Jacob’s elation by saying they were close as children and haven’t seen each other in almost a decade.  Sarah melts like candlewax, oozing sympathy like lavender scent into the brittle air of what you considered your home only twenty fucking minutes ago.

You want to slit the throat of everyone in the room, but you restrain your temper.  Remember your purpose.  This is all fake, every picture, every piece of furniture is a design of your puppetmaster Joe Carroll and you can’t believe you ever let yourself think differently.

The scar on your chest burns.

In a break from the doe eyes, when Sarah and Jacob are at the counter refilling everyone’s glasses, Emma’s eyes bore into you and she jerks her scowling chin towards the door.  Every ounce of her being is screaming _Leave_ and it makes you want to stay, just to be obstinate, but Jacob returns and runs his fingertips along Emma’s shoulder blade and you jump to your feet before you even process the thought.

“Let’s let these two catch up, Sarah,” you say, holding your hand out towards the woman you’ve grown to hate less than is healthy.  She grins up at you and takes your hand, letting you pull her up and twirl her in a third-wheel waltz.  “We can go eat dinner somewhere romantic, my treat,” you offer.  “That place downtown you always wish a rich young man would take you?”  You fix a fake tie fastened around your neck, put on the nice-guy mask you perfected in childhood.

Her eyes light up, and she looks so beautiful when she is happy that you understand exactly why Joe wants to kill her so badly.  

“Billy,” she exhales.  “That restaurant is so expensive!  There is no way -- ”

You cut her off with tut.  “Nothing is too much for my best girl,” you say, with a genial grin that is almost real, the amount of emotion you have behind it.

Sarah squeals and jumps and claps her hands and thanks you with words, with sloppy wet kisses to both of your cheeks, with an exclamation to Jacob that Will Wilson is the luckiest man in the entire world.  She rushes back over to her apartment to change into something nicer, telling you to do the same, you won’t make her look bad by wearing _that_ shirt to such a fancy place.

You watch her go and you shake your head in disbelief over how full of _energy_ that woman is, but your smile stays on your face too long, you know it does, because Jacob and Emma are both staring at you like they don’t recognize you.  You’ve fallen into dangerous territory, with all these feelings bubbling inside your human shell.  You swap your smile for a scowl, bite out, “Happy, Emma?” and storm up the stairs.

You hear brief murmurs and then the familiar tread of your fake fiancé cautiously following after you.  You search the closet for something Sarah would approve of, sliding the hangers of your work shirts one by one to the side as you eliminate them for one reason or another -- too stuffy, too itchy, too red, too ugly.  Jacob appears behind you, his presence tangible even though he has made no sound.  All the shirts on your side of the closet are unsuitable, so you turn to check Will’s side, to see if a grade school teacher’s wardrobe is more adequate for a platonic date than a computer technician’s options.  

He is already holding out the sweater you got from a thrift store in downtown Norfolk.  You bought it for yourself but ended up giving to him last winter when he wouldn’t stop complaining about how cold you kept the house.  It’s as dark as blue can get without being navy, it looks fantastic with the black pants you already have on, and it fits you perfectly.

“Try this one,” Jacob says, even though it is perfectly obvious why he is holding the sweater towards you.  You reach for it, wordless, but he pulls it away before you can touch it.  “You two didn’t have to leave,” he mutters, avoiding your eyes even when he is vying for your attention.

“Yeah, we did,” you say bluntly, and snatch the sweater out of his hands.  You start on the buttons of your collared flannel but Jacob’s hands quickly cover yours, pushing them away.

“Let me,” he whispers into your chest, speaking unnecessarily once again.  As requested, you let him.  You think he’s trying to prove a point, trying to say something without actually saying a damn thing.  You probably could understand what he means, if you tried, but you don’t want to try, too petulant over the hurt brewing in the empty expanse of your chest cavity.  

The buttons are all undone, and Jacob pushes the fabric away, tugging the sleeves off your arms and dropping the shirt onto the bed, leaving you shivering in your white undershirt even though you rarely feel cold.  You let him dress you, threading your limbs through the wool and then pulling it down your body until the hem reaches your belt buckle.  He slips his hand into your front jean pocket and pulls out your ring, the one that matches the silver glinting on the third finger on his left hand.  You hold your hand out, expectant, and he slides it on with practiced ease.  You take the ring off for work, it gets in the way when you type , and he makes it a point to slide it back on every evening.  He might be trying to say something with that gesture too.

When he’s done, he pats your sweater at random spots, ostensibly flattening the seams but you think that he is just trying to touch you longer.  His hands curl around your hips, his work complete, and he looks up at you, finally, an indecipherable smile curling his mouth at the edges.  He tilts his chin up and presses a firm kiss to your lax lips.  “Perfect,” he says, steady as his kiss, and then he turns and leaves, goes back down to Emma and the ringing doorbell that must be Sarah.

You touch your fingers to your mouth and think, _Lucky number thirteen_.

 

\---

 

It’s a summer day so hot your skin wants to melt in protest and the power has been out for over two hours when you finally give up on keeping your shirt on for Sarah’s benefit.  She sees the scar as quickly as you assumed she would, goddamn does that woman never miss a thing, and she goes quizzical and a little suspicious, “Who’s Jacob?” with a little huffed laugh to offset the tension in her shoulders.

You smile, even as Jacob himself starts to look a little panicked.  Luckily, he’s sitting behind her, on the old armchair, and she doesn’t turn in his direction.

“Someone from a different lifetime,” you recite, the line you came up with in preparation for this inevitable eventuality.  “Long before Will even existed in my life.”  You complete the lie with a sappy smile, spurious as saccharin, aimed at your dear sham fiancé.

Sarah looks reassured, smiling faintly.  “First love?” she says wistfully, tilting her head to stare out the window.

You look right at Jacob and find him watching you unsteadily, like he’s afraid of your answer.

“Something like that,” you say, just to watch his face shutter into discomfort.

 

\---

 

The call comes in at 1:43 in the morning and you surprise yourself with how prepared you feel.  You like Sarah, you’re perfectly capable of admitting it, but you remain ready to hand-deliver her to her worst nightmare, who will kill her slowly and with incredible finesse.  You don’t particularly like Joe, which you cannot admit to anything outside the echo chamber of your own head, but his vision, oh God do you love his vision.  He dreams big, he always has, he wants to make a name for himself and he is willing to let you into the spotlight with him.  That was enough to uproot you once, and now it’s enough to uproot you again.

You’ve made a home here, in a Norfolk townhouse sharing one-quarter of your walls with a woman whose life you plan to cut short and sharing a bed with a man you were sure you would never be able to touch, let alone hold.  You’ve made a home here, in Jacob, maybe, is the more accurate description.

The news breaks publically, so you and Jacob head over to Sarah’s to protect her or console her or whatever she expects from her most trusted friends.  You want to feel bad about betraying her, to feel a modicum of the guilt that is suffocating Jacob, but you just… don’t.  Sarah is a lovely woman but her days have always been numbered.  She has been a dead woman walking every moment that you have known her and you have never forgotten it.  Jacob had to forget to sell the lie.  Neither of you copes well.

Night comes, and Sarah is gagged and bound in the trunk of the van, although the gag was unnecessary considering you spiked her drink earlier and then dosed her again for good measure when you snuck in through the shared wall in the closet.  She won’t wake up until after she is returned to Joe, making the delivery process as uncomplicated as possible.  You won’t have to endure sobbed pleas for her life or attempted manipulation of your friendship.  She will never even know it was you who has done this to her.  You try to pretend like that is not part of the appeal, that you don’t care either way if she knows what you have done, but you can’t fool yourself.  You want her to remember you fondly, unaware of your betrayal.

The drive is silent, the air thrumming with tension and anticipation.  Now is the time you have all been waiting for, will it be worth it?  You already know your answer, have since the drunken kiss on the couch two years ago.  You understand your own priorities.

The warehouse is easier to find than you expected.  When he picks her up out of the trunk, Jacob cradles Sarah’s head in the crook of his elbow like she is something fragile, like he is afraid of hurting her.  You don’t know what his priorities are, but you doubt they include carrying a woman to execution with delicate care.  

Joe is all broad smiles and heartfelt praise and firm touches with lingering warmth.  You have never understood floral analogies until now, watching Jacob blossom under the attention like a wilted plant finally rained on.  You tell yourself that plants drown when you give them too much water and tug on his elbow, reminding both of them of the time and the meeting with Emma.  He is reluctant to move until Joe gives him permission and another proud smile and pronouncement of gratitude.

Jacob is grinning as you walk away, even when Sarah screams and you have to fight your urge to flinch.  Priorities, you think sullenly.

You stomp your way to the car and fling yourself into the driver’s seat, starting the engine before Jacob even reaches the door.  He climbs in and gets settled, moving fluidly and slowly, that stupid smile still on his face.  He hasn’t said a word yet but you know when he does it will be the usual parroted worship, like he’s a wooden dummy in Emma’s lap, her hand so far up his ass it’s coming out of his mouth.

You’re really, really not in the mood to think about Emma.  The countdown clock until you see her is in its final hours and good God do you never want it to hit zero.  If you never see her face again it would be too soon, and all that shit.  

You floor the accelerator because you need something to do with your aggression and there is no other convenient option.  The highway emerges and then fades into a blur of half light lampposts and orchestrated forestry.  Jacob still hasn’t said a word.

A dimly lit parking lot appears on your side of the median and you pull into it at breakneck speed without warning.  Jacob splutters, asks, _what are you doing_ , _is something wrong?_ , _we have somewhere to_ be _if you need to pee it can wait_.  You park in a shadowed spot hidden from the road by a decrepit building that used to be a skating rink.  

You finally get the courage to look at him, but you can’t stand the indignant look on his face as Emma’s name crosses his lips, so you grab him by the cheeks and slam your mouths together in the middle of his sentence, the least hesitant kiss you’ve ever initiated.  You don’t know what number this is, you stopped counting three months ago because you stopped being able to tell which ones were real and which ones were Billy and Will’s.  Your ability to read Jacob’s emotions as clearly as your own faded with time instead of growing stronger, in a testament to his development rather than your decline.

Jacob kisses you back, hesitant and slow in counterpoint to your frenzy, your desperation.  His very bones whisper, “Why?” and your every motion is in answer -- your fingers in his hair is _I need you_ , your teeth nibbling on his lower lip is _I’ve loved you since the moment we met_ , the tongue sweeping away blood from the skin you broke is _I don’t think I’ll ever get to have this again_ , your full body shakes are _Please don’t leave me, don’t toss me aside like this meant nothing_ , your hand gripping his neck is _I know we’re going to die soon and I can’t face it without touching you_.  

You pull away finally, gasping in air until you stop feeling dizzy.  You clench your fingers, one hand pulling his hair and the other leaving faint marks at the nape of his neck.

“Was that all you wanted?” he asks, incredulous and breathless.

You untangle your fingers and your limbs and settle back into the driver’s seat.  His lips are the kind of pink usually achieved with expensive gloss or eating too much candy, save for the spot of red where your teeth broke through.

“Yes,” you lie.  “That’s all I wanted.”

Jacob rolls his eyes.  “Can we get back on the road, man, we have a deadline to meet.”

“Anything you want,” you say, quiet and intentional.  

He stops smiling, thumbing at his empty ring finger.  His is still sitting on the nightstand on his side of the bed; yours is in the front pocket of your jeans on a chain long enough to hide it under your shirt should you need to.  Priorities.

You look away from him.  Start the car.  Floor the accelerator.  You need to meet Emma in an hour.  

 

\---

 

Emma shouts, “It’s the girl!  She’s getting away!” and good God are you the opposite of surprised.  Poor little Emma, thinking believing in Jacob will be enough to turn him into something he is not.  You have made that mistake countless times over, and you are disinclined to do it any more.

You corner the girl in the barn and the two of you tackle her to the ground together, each of you fighting off her limbs so the other can gain the advantage and finally daze her.  You make a good team, you think to yourself as you and Emma carry the girl down the steps to the basement with ease.  Emma smiles when you offer to tie the girl up and it makes an odd bubble of warmth creep up your throat.

It’s only after you’ve made it into the kitchen that you realize how fucking filthy you’ve ended up, so you walk straight into the bathroom.  And of course, Emma is there, she is just as dirty as you are.  “We both love him, Paul,” she says, and she has never said anything more truthful.

The flannel she is holding slips and on her left breast you see cracked scabs bleeding fresh -- over her heart, J O E, spaced evenly, sure smooth strokes.  You recognize the curl of the “J” from every time you look at your chest in the mirror, from every time he grades a paper and writes “Gᴏᴏᴅ Jᴏʙ!!” in the margins.

He left no hesitation marks in Emma and you can’t decide if that makes you proud or jealous.  

She sees you looking, of course she does, and she tilts her head to side, mouth open with a calculating expression.  “Take off your shirt,” she orders, and you obey in silence.  At this point, who cares if she knows.  Slowly, her mouth closes into a faint smirk.  “I guess he loves us back, huh?”  She giggles, grins.  She’d probably twirl her hair if it were long enough.  “Enough to know who we are, on the inside.”

“I guess so.”

She steps towards you, her mouth turning into something bashful when she presses it into yours, her lips soft and delicate like she’s trying to convince you she’s the harmless cherub she likes to play-act.  You’re not fooled but that’s probably most of the appeal with her.  The switch from safety to danger.  Never knowing what might be a catalyst.  You press your flat palms against her back and pull her in, so she has to go on her toes to reach you.

Her fingernails bite into your skin, shark teeth half-moons that you hope leave a mark, leave a wound, leave a scar.  Hopes she turns your body into a canvas, just as Jacob has.  Just as Joe has turned your life into art.  You want her to turn everything into destruction, watch the world hurricane into chaos the same way your heart feels like a natural disaster every time it beats.

You follow her into the shower, laughing together as the mud slides down your skin into the drain.  Holy water washing the sin away, your mouth still sliding against her like Judas kissed Jesus.  Maybe more like Judas kissing Mary Magdalene, one of you faithful to Jesus until the end, the other realizing the faults, all depending on whether Jesus is Joe or Jacob.

Emma slips her fingers into your hair and tugs, sharp stinging pain grounding you back in reality.  Your brain is racing to places it doesn’t need to go and Emma is not a woman to be ignored.  Your mouths don’t part again until Jacob walks in, kicked puppy apologetic.  You forgave him before he even messed up, and Emma must have as well, if you know her at all like you think you do.

She slides the other side of the curtain open, holds out her arm like a lifeline.  “We’re not giving up on you,” she says.  You let her handle the talking, the gestures.  You and Jacob, you’re precarious at best right now and you will not be the reason he leaves you both.

He takes a step forward, slowly, and then another, and then in the span of a blink he’s cradled between you and Emma, pressing his smiling mouth into both of your necks and making soft hysterical noises somewhere between sobbing and laughter.

The morning after, when Jacob panics and hides in the bathroom like he hasn’t woken up in your arms a hundred times before, he leaves a hollow space in the bed.  You prepare to curl in on yourself, stave away the chill with your own body heat but instead Emma scoots back towards you, a satisfied smirk curling up her lips at the edges.  Her body fits into yours comfortably, no awkward maneuvering or elbows where there shouldn’t be.  She settles onto your bicep and her breath raises goosebumps on your skin.  You nose into her hair, press a kiss behind her ear.  You think maybe you can love her, one day, now that she isn’t just the girl Jacob wants more than you.

 

\---

 

So of course, the shit hits the fan and Emma abandons you and Jacob to the authorities.  Priorities, as usual, and hers are carved into her chest just like yours.  You can’t bring yourself to feel surprised but God does it fucking sting.

You’re so distracted that you get stabbed, and then everything goes a little blurry.  Jacob’s roaming hands and muttered reassurances, hauling you up by the armpits and dragging you along, repeating _You’ll be okay_ in a panicked whisper, that’s all you remember until Jacob knocks out a man with his bare hands and you fall into the passenger seat of a pickup truck, fighting back nausea with sheer strength of will.  You count your breaths, _in out, in out_ , and start planning what your final words should be, how you want to be remembered.  

It ends up dawn in the space of a blink, Emma’s silence echoing through the car in the static pauses between Jacob’s pleas, _Why did you leave us_?  “Us.”  A single word and the chasm of betrayal feels that much smaller.

You thank him for not leaving you, the closest you can get to saying all the things swirling around the alphabet soup in your pain-addled brain.  He tells you to breathe and then gasps, suddenly, throwing himself back into the driver’s seat, _I know somewhere we can go_ , accompanied by his breathtaking grin, sunlight incarnate.  

_I love you_ , you think, and you wonder how you ever thought your last words could be anything else.

 

\---

 

You’re lying on the couch in Jacob’s family’s second house and you figure now is as good a time as any.  “Jacob,” you say, as loudly as you can manage.  He doesn’t seem to want to look at you, too busy worrying his lip with his teeth and staring at his phone longingly.  As if Emma will call back.  As if she has not made clear she wanted you both to die.

“I won’t die for Joe, Jacob.  I won’t do it.”  You take a deep breath, feeling all of your skin stretch around your wound as yours lungs expand.  “But I want to die for you.”

Jacob springs towards you, rubbing his hands up and down your arms.  “No, no, no one’s dying.  Not today.  My father won’t get here until the day after tomorrow, we have plenty of time.”  His forehead is crinkling like it always does when he’s lying.

You close your weakening hand in the fabric of his shirt, pull him close.  “Promise me, if it comes down to it, that you will let me die for you.”

Jacob closes his eyes and leans his forehead onto your cheek.  You’re willing to wait, so the two of you stay locked in stubborn silence, just close enough to feel the other’s breath.  He inhales sharply and you think he’s going to agree, but instead he tugs himself away from you, grabbing at the coffee table.  

“Roderick’s email!” he shouts.  “I have Roderick’s email, I can contact him directly!”  

You whisper his name but the clacking of the keyboard drowns you out.

 

\---

 

You come to in a feverish haze, a heavy pressure on your stomach that must be proper bandaging, with Jacob’s hand curled into yours.  His face is pale, his hair is tangled and sweaty, his eyes are bloodshot, he is covered in bruises and scratches, but his mouth is parted into a smile so wide his cheeks bleed from the cuts he has reopened.  His fingers squeeze your palm and you wince more from the sensation lancing through your arm than from any real pain.

He whispers your name into the air, his voice crackling like the fireplaces you’ve only really seen in movies.  You must shut your eyes because when he comes back into focus, his face is so close that your eyes almost cross trying to get a good look at him.  Although that may be the pain meds more than the distance.

His throat works around a thick swallow and his teeth leave imprints in his lip from how hard he is biting.  “I love you,” he says, looking at your hairline, at the pillow your head is on, anywhere but your face.

That’s when you realize that none of this could be real, that you died on his mother’s couch, that the infection ate all your good blood and left you with nothing but disease in your circulatory system, that this must be a heaven tailor-made to your deepest desires.  If you were awake, if this was real, there is no way Jacob would be sitting next to you, telling you he loves you in words instead of sleepy kisses along your collarbone one morning before school.  No, this must be your afterlife, because your Jacob was never really yours.

He finally turns to meet your eyes and maybe he sees the resignation on your face, your acceptance of your demise, because his hand comes up to stroke your cheek and his lips tremble a little.

"I’m sorry it took you almost dying for me to admit it,” he says, and you know, you _know_ he has to be lying, and maybe this is hell instead, your own personalized hell where you are given everything you have always wanted but you live every single moment knowing that not one single part of it is real nor will it ever be.  You have lived this hell before, in those years in the townhouse cozying up to Sarah, and you know it will hurt more than anything else could.

He whispers your name again, his mouth shaking as his breathing stutters.

“It’s okay,” you say, quiet but confident.  “It’s okay, Jacob, I know I’m dead.  It’s okay.”  You reach up a hand to pat him reassuringly but your limbs are wild, moving in every direction except the one you want.  He catches your wayward arm and holds it to his chest.  His eyebrows are knit and his skin looks ashen, now, not just pale.

“You’re not dead,” he says, his voice cracking.  “Roderick got to us in time, got you into surgery.  You’re _alive_ , Paul.”  Tears leak out of the corners of his eyes and slide down his torn-up cheeks.

You wonder how long this illusion will last, if you will end up in eternal flames, brimstone, and sulfur soon.  You wonder if this will endure forever, if torture more potent than this could exist.  

“You’re alive,” Jacob repeats, moving so his face eclipses your vision.  “You’re alive, you’re right here, _I’m_ right here, Paul, please,” he begs in a frantic escalation.  He is so close you can see the parts of his iris that are more blue than grey and the red veins worming through the whites.

You look down, away.  He has a chain around his neck that looks just like the one for your ring.  “I know,” you whisper, and you shut your eyes to encourage darkness to encompass you again.

 

\---

 

This time, you wake up to the muted sounds of screaming, Jacob’s voice ringing clearly, “You left us to die!”

You pry your eyelids apart to see daylight from the windows, reflecting off whitewashed walls.  It takes you a few seconds to realize you’re not at Jacob’s anymore, you must be somewhere new.  The door doesn’t exactly creak but you still hear it when it opens.

“You’re awake,” Jacob whispers, and then he is next to you on the bed, his hands running through your hair.  His tears transfer from his cheeks to yours when he tries to kiss you, bumping your noses and missing your mouth entirely, instead fitting his lips over your chin.  He’s laughing through his tears, and you can hear his lungs wheeze as they try to keep up.

Your name sounds from the doorway, Emma’s heavy sigh saturated with relief.  Joey is wrapped around one of her legs and he bounces towards you with a, “Wake up sleepy head it’s already lunch time!”  He looks confused when he sees your abdomen, pointing at your bandages with a disparaging, “What happened to you?”

“He got hurt,” Jacob says, voice terse as he stares Emma down.

Her face crumples in on itself with something like grief until she clenches her jaw and turns away, towards you.  “I’m glad to see you awake,” she says quietly, looking directly at your face.  She has her silent determination thing going on, attempting to control her chin quiver with the same steadiness in her eyes.  She looks like she’s trying to say _I’m sorry_ but doesn’t know how.

You snort, entirely too amused with all the anger floating around the room.  “Likewise,” you say sardonically.  Emma fixes her eyes on the floor.

“Joey, why don’t you take Emma to go play outside?” Jacob says, faux excited.  He’s got a grin on his face that looks like a sticker put on at the wrong angle.

Emma looks like she wants to protest until Joey’s eager eyes turn on her and she goes, reluctantly, with a promise to be back later.  Jacob grits his teeth and sighs as he closes the door after them.

That’s how you figure out this is real, that you aren’t actually in the afterlife.  Even your dreams have come to accept Emma as constant and unavoidable, always attached to Jacob, a package deal, but here he is, shooing her away by no one’s choice but his own.  You have never felt loved like this in your entire life.

“Jacob,” you whisper, and he jolts back towards you, muttering _Shit_ and _Do you need anything, are you in pain?_ as he smooths the blankets and adjusts the pillows and looks anywhere but your face.  You roll your eyes and fight away a chuckle, grabbing for his hand until your reach is true.  You lace your fingers through his and squeeze.  “Jacob, I love you too.”

He freezes, mid-movement, glances to your face and then away just as quickly.  “I was half hoping you wouldn’t remember that.”

You let your laugh out this time, too exhausted to control your impulses.  “Sorry to disappoint.”

Jacob falls into a kneeling position on the bed, stumbling over himself in his haste to put his free hand on your cheek and look you in the eyes.  “Paul, you have never disappointed me, not even once, you could never disappoint me -- ”

“Hey, hey, hey!” you interrupt, stroking your thumb over the back of his hand.  “It’s okay, I was just joking.”

Jacob exhales noisily, his shoulders shaking.  “You almost died, man, I just… ”  he trails off, tears building back up in his eyes.

“I didn’t though,” you say, an arrogant smirk spreading across your face.  “Maybe I’m invincible.”

You pretend not to notice that his laugh sounds more like a sob, and he misses again when he tries to kiss you, and his hand is trembling against your cheek, and his voice wavers when he whispers _I love you_ into your mouth.

You just say “I love you too” and kiss him until you can taste the blood from his split lip.


End file.
